More on the Dazzle
OK, so a previous post of mine about Dazzle got some traffic and I was informed that the idea of Dazzle is that it can indeed be skinned. Thats great. Infact Itazura Radio even linked me to some skins that are already being shown on the Second Life wiki.
After some prodding around on what it can do I’ve come to some conclusions and formed an opinion.
The current methodology of skinning is far too complicated for newbies and people who aren’t fans of editing code. I personally don’t mind getting around the code and copying & pasting stuff but some people just may not want to touch it.
Secondly, there appears to be no menu in the preferences that allows the changing of skins on the fly.
Also, there are no tools currently that could help people create and customise their own skins.
So here is my proposal on what I think needs to happen. Firstly, the Linden’s need to get their act together and bring in an easier system of importing GUI skins. They should do this by adding a new tab on the preferences called “Interface” or “Skins” (or anything else that describes it. Calling it just a Skin could confuse some people because of the avatar skins).
Next they need to implement a new structure on how skins can be stored. IE. SecondLife\Skins\* (* being the name of the interface)
Then the lindens should make a program that makes it easy for people to create GUI’s as easily as possible. If the lindens don’t do this then it should be fairly easy for someone to make a GUI application in something like Visual Basic .NET or whatever the tools are for the Macintosh. Preferably an open source tool since then its free for all and people can contribute and improve the code and stuff.
Thats my opinions for the designing. I personally don’t mind editing code but I would trade it any day for a simple little tool that can help me easily make a GUI for the new Dazzle interface.
SecondLie?
Anyone suddenly notice this new twitterer called SecondLie?
As far as I can tell it started on Thursday this week and has since made about 300 tweets (as of the time of writing) and has almost 200 followers.
So far the twitterer (whoever it is) has entertained me quite a lot.
Check it out, Whoever it is…
Strike Time?
OK, I am going to discuss this whole SL Blogger strike thing. I myself a blogger am blogging about a blogging strike. Yay Oxymoron’s!
So, Gwyneth is leading a protest about the whole copyright and licensing thing about the lack of a clarification. Even though there was a clarification.
Why didn’t the linden’s address the bloggers?
Pretty much because they aren’t going to go after the frickin bloggers. The bloggers help promote Second Life so why the hell would they go after the bloggers?
It’s like saying that Apple sues all the blogs for talking about the iPhone. It’s crazy. They didn’t even take down Fake Steve. So why the hell would Linden Lab even take them down.
The copyright thing goes after people who are profiting by infringing on the Second Life copyrights. SLPN was sorta affected in a sense because we may in the future recieve cash sponsorship to help out the costs of running the network. Hence why I did some changes like just branding it as SLPN, Podcasts for the Metaverse
My blog will not change UNLESS Linden Lab says, you gotta change this. Because lets be honest, they will only give you a written warning about the content if its deemed to violate in a way they don’t like it.
And just remember…theres only 49 days left if your super-paranoid that the Lab’s is out to get you
Remember, It’s only a Server
Last week the Lindens announced that they were going to be introducing a new land store system which promises almost instant delivery of sims. With this a price drop was announced for the purchasing of Estate simulators.
When the new Land Store launches, setup fees will be:
* Normal Islands: USD$1000 setup
* Normal Openspaces: USD$250 setup
* Educational Islands: USD$700 setup
* Educational Openspaces: USD$175 setup
For some reason people started to interperet this as being a move against the OpenSim project or that the Lindens are having poor sales.
But if you take a logical approach to it. You will realise that it really isn’t the case. The fact is that technology gets cheaper and cheaper. Take an iPod for example. As more features and storage is added, the prices drops. This is the way that the tech industry moves and it obviously ripples into Second Life.
But wait, what about OpenSim?
Well… I am pretty sure that just last week, it was announced that OpenSim and Linden Lab are working together to integrate OpenSim servers into Second Life.
How is that going to work?
I think that they will probably have a message that pops up every time you enter the area of an OpenSim based server like, “This is a third-party server and Linden Lab is not responsible for what may happen”.
Personally I am excited about the prospect of having third-party servers in Second Life as this will lead to even cheaper server options for people. Of course all the backing up is down to the third-party or you instead of Second Life, hence the cheaper aspect. After all part of the cost for sims is that you need to pay the maintainence fees, backup charges, bandwidth etc.
As stability slowly comes to Second Life…so does some really exciting stuff that I just love the idea of.
Avatar Rendering Cost
Another new thing in Dazzle in the Advanced section is called Avatar Rendering Cost. This helps to calculate the whole lag that an avatar is ultimately causing. This can help banish some myths about avatars and prim hair stuff etc.
My avatar usually doesn’t wear prim hair since the skin has hair painted on to it. All I really wear is 2 trainers (sneakers to the yanks) and a suit (which is actually a nod to the Tenth Doctor in Dr Who).
Anyway, I tried out this setting and found that my rendering cost was typically 105-110. Which is actually a brilliant score. Compared to Jane2 who at the time had a cost of 2500.
I also tried it out with some prim hair on and that brought it up to about 505. So in a sense I am happy because my avatar is grid friendly and stuff and in a world filled with lag. Especially events, I am doing my part to bring down my “Prim-Emissions”
Somebody Dazzle Me?
OK so the next release candidate for SL was released featuring the new and amazing Dazzle UI. As much as the Linden Lab™ says that this is more than a colour change, it really just is a new lick of paint to an interface. and I personally do not like the interface..
It doesn’t seem to change the core way that it is laid out. That is a problem for me because I am a resident of nearly 2 years of age and I still to this day find things in the interface that I didn’t know about in the beginning days and it makes me wonder, what does the new Second Life resident think of this interface.
Not to mention…Dazzle is too…vista-like for me. Some argue that it is more Aqua like but I don’t think so. Its more of an Aero on spearmint flavoured steroids. The more I use the interface the more I want the old interface just because of the colour. Maybe if Linden Lab™ implemented a skinning scheme where users can create their own interface, sort of like Firefox does it, then I would be happier. Possibly people could sell their skinned SL themes but only as an option. Sort of like what they are planning with Windlight.
The only feature I like in the client so far is the in-built Anti-Aliasing. To those who do not play games and most likely will not of heard of this amazing technology. Anti-Aliasing is the art of pixel smoothing in 3D graphics which makes everything look a whole lot better. In some enviroments 2X is fine. Snapshot lovers will want to go as far up as possible to get the best photographs as possible.
Don’t think that going all the way to 16X Anti-Aliasing doesn’t affect performance. It puts a lot more pressure on a graphics card. Top that off with Windlight/Draw Distance and everything else and you have got to need a powerful rig to handle it all.
Meet SpaceNavigator
SLPN takes over the grid?
YAY, i found a bug. Earlier in the day I was configuring the SLPN plot over at Podcaster Island and decided to put in some HTML on a prim things. After some bugging around and getting it to work i noticed an odd bug pop up. All my usually grey unrezzed textures were suddenly partly black had the SLPN website showing.
And this has happened to me before but it was just black…so it seemingly is a recurring bug. Maybe I should submit this bug to JIRA later.
SLPN’s next phase!
OK. Live Podcasts. I have already talked about this on the SLPN’s blog about us moving to live podcasts. Well as of this week we shall move to the live podcasting aspect that I have been intrested in doing.
So how is this going to work?
Well certainly not with video, at least for now. My approach is to do it with audio in a radio enviroment because it is easier to stream for some people who have lower bandwith. Also it’s what I know best. And as much as I like a challenge I prefer doing it in audio for now. It’s live because we will record it in front a live audience and as we move on, we will get the video in the mix as well.
So the week begins most likely on Tuesday with a new show called “The Warf Show” which I will be doing on KONA radio which will replace the Podmafia Re-Broadcast. With Podmafia being a podcast, there isn’t much sense to rebroadcast it I think. It might be this week or next week though. But I will be recording it for podcast purposes.
Then there is MetaNews Weekly which WILL happen this Wednesday at Nowhereville at 9AM SLT. 9AM SLT is 5PM for all the UK folks so that will be a fun little challenge. The hosts of that show are Malburns Writer and Tara Yeats in-world.
There is a SLPN Live group that I have set up for people who want updates for when shows are happening and such like. The group is not the only solution. We also have a Subscribe-o-Matic board for all those updates as well so if you DON’T want to waste one of your precious groups, well your not left behind.
Who needs to login anyway?
OK, We all know it. The logins were broked for an extensive period of time and yes it did indeed suck. However it wasn’t a problem too much for me (personally). A lot of my friends will know that I am indeed a Dr Who fanatic. Infact my avatar is not of Human based origin BUT a Time Lord (but that doesn’t really matter).
The point is that last night, Dr Who returned and with other things like YouTube the grid downtime did not affect me. However I shall now write some of my top tips for downtime.
1. Download Podcasts!
You don’t need an iPod to listen to any podcasts. All you need is something that plays .mp3 files and IF you don’t have one of those then you don’t have a computer that can run Second Life’s client. A lot of great audio podcasts can be found at http://slpodcast.net and no that is not just a plug. I’ve had people come up to me and say they listen to the shows at work/in-world/car etc. The point is there is some great discussions there for everyone. However if you like the idea of TV there is all those great video shows over at SLCN such as Tonight Live (which i am watching streamed live right now as I right this).
2. Read…
Another thing I was meaning to do was get through all my RSS feeds and stuff. If you like to read internet content but don’t like the hassle of entering in all those URLs there is a better way. Use a webapp called Google Reader. I use it personally and love it. What I do is tag all the blogs into certain categories like say “Second Life” or “Tech News” and as soon as a new entry is up it displays on my window to read. This helps me get up to date on all the news so I can find all the good content about things. That’s one of the things I do with podcasts. Go through all the junk and podcast it in a entertaining way if possible.
3. Get Away from that computer…seriously
Sure you need your SL fix but just step away from that monitor and get some of that good ol’ fresh air. I personally try to do a hell of a lot more these days because even though I am young…I really need to start getting out more. A lot of the time when nothings happening in the feeds or in SL for me, I just sit around. One thing I have been trying to commit more to is walking around. The area I live in is a village so theres some good scenery. What I do is A) Get my podcasts synced… B) Grab my dogs leash C) Go Walking…
I read somewhere that we as humans are naturally lazy and being the climate today we just become victims to it…
Theres a few things for some avatars to do while the grid is down and being broken. Also I mentioned in section 1 that I was watching Paisley Beebe. Well as i still write this the show hasn’t really started yet because of all those SL problems. If Linden Lab™ is wanting to make sure that it’s product is to succeed in the future they need to tackle the problems now. I predicted earlier this year (i’m sure I said this on The Podmafia Podcast) that this year was going to be the year when the Linden Lab™ was going to try and sort out all of the problems with lag such by rolling out things like Havok4 and Mono. Right now they are at the deployment phase. The next task is refining those tools in the real enviroment of the grid and getting to all work. At least thats what I think they are doing
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